1. Getting Started

The 3D Material Tab allows you to create normal, displacement, specular and diffuse (color) maps from the current texture in the Texture Tab. To build these maps on the 3D Material Tab you can simply load an existing texture into the Texture Tab or generate one there from Seed images. Although generating a texture from a seed image has advantages (you can make it seamlessly tiled as desired) it is not required: you can simply load an existing image into the canvas and generate normal, displacement and specular maps here.

To create 3D material maps you can simply:

1. Load an image into the Texture Canvas in the Texture Tab. Or generate one from Seed images.
2. The normal, displacement and specular maps are generated here and displayed in the 3D Preview.
3. Tune the surface parameters in the 3D Maps area, for example to add or remove fine detail as best suited to the material.

After the material is customized you can save the maps into image files and use them in your 3D application.

2. The 3D Preview Area

The left side of the 3D Material Tab displays a 3D preview of how the normal, displacement, specular and diffuse maps will appear when rendered on a 3D model. Each time a setting is changed at the 3D Maps area on the right, PixPlant will automatically calculate and update the 3D preview area on the left.

The texture upon which the 3D maps are generated is the one generated (or simply loaded) into the Texture Canvas in the Texture Tab.

The previewed model is rendered with parallax mapping (also called offset mapping or virtual displacement mapping), to aim at the best possible realism while offering interactive frame rates. Parallax mapping requires a 3D graphics card capable of version 2.0 pixel shaders: any graphics card sold since 2004 should support these without problems.

As with any other 3D application which uses your 3D graphics card, it's important that you have the latest drivers and DirectX 9 installed. If you see any problems with the 3D Preview please check for the latest versions. Running the PixPlant installer will scan and offer to update DirectX.

Previewed Maps

The Previewed Maps setting at the top-right corner of the 3D Preview area controls which of the maps are rendered in the 3D preview.

It's usually a good idea to first tune the normal and displacement maps, then the specular and diffuse maps: to simplify this the checkboxes at the top-right corner of the 3D Preview area can be selected and unselected, which will only render the enabled maps.

You can use the left mouse button the rotate the model, the right button to move the light, the mouse wheel to zoom the model and double click to alternate between fit zoom and maximum zoom. See the Quick Help inside PixPlant for more info.

Preview Light Intensity

This setting controls the intensity of the light source used in the 3D Preview to allow you to see the 3D maps' behavior under different light values. It's only used for the preview and won't affect the 3D maps generation.

3D Material Tiling Mode

On this option you can select whether the generated 3d maps should seamlessly tile, horizontally and/or vertically.

This setting is synchronized with the one displayed at the same location in the Texture Tab - if you change one the other will also change. However if you change the setting, the texture still needs to be generated in the Texture Tab.

UV Scale

This setting controls the number of times that the 3D maps will tile around the current model preview. For seamless tiling the Tiling Mode setting must be have the appropriate value and the generated/loaded texture in the Texture Tab must must also tile as selected here.

3D Model

Change this setting to preview the 3D maps on a different model. The default sphere is usually the best model for quickly understanding depth and normals.

3. The 3D Maps Area

The 3D Maps area at the right side of the 3D Material Tab is where the characteristics of the normal, displacement, specular and diffuse maps can be tuned. Each time a setting is changed, the effects are calculated and displayed both in the current tab and in the 3D Preview area.

The Save button and popup at the bottom allows you to save or copy to the clipboard the current map or to save all the 3D maps.

In all the maps you can use the mouse wheel to zoom, pan with the left mouse button pressed and double click to alternate between fit zoom and maximum zoom.

You can click the label of any setting in this area to reset it to its initial value.

Common Surface Settings

The Common Surface Settings area is always available at the bottom-right corner of the 3D Material Tab and allows you to customize settings common to the generation of the normal, displacement and specular maps. In general you should first try to obtain a good relief by changing these settings - usually by previewing only the Normals+Displacement in the 3D Preview - and later customizing the settings specific to each map.

The following settings are available:

• Relief Invert: Select to invert the relief depth if elements that should be higher are instead appearing at the bottom (or the other way around).
• Equalize Relief: If checked this setting will massage the surface in order to create a more uniform depth map.
• Fine Detail: This setting controls the amount of fine detail (high frequency visual detail) included on the surface.
• Medium Detail: Controls the amount of medium-level detail (medium frequency visual detail) available on the surface.
• Large Detail: Controls the amount of coarser (lower frequency) detail on the surface.
• Base Surface: This setting controls the overall roughness of the surface, with lower levels building a smoother (and more flat) relief.

Click Reset Settings to set the settings in this area to their initial values.

Normal Map

The Normal Map tab displays the normal map generated from the current texture. With the Intensity slider you con control the strength of the surface normals, with higher values producing a rougher relief while lower settings create a smoother map.

Displacement Map

The Displacement Map tab displays the displacement (depth) map generated from the current texture. The intensity of the height values can be controlled with the Depth slider.

Specular Map

This tab displays and includes controls to refine the specular map generated from the current texture:

• Specular Brightness: Controls the specular intensity with higher levels producing more shininess, while lower levels will cause little or no reflections.
• Specular Contrast: This setting controls the amount of difference or contrast between the highest and lowest specularity levels in the map."
• Specular Noise: This setting adds noise to the specular map which is usually useful for some grainier materials.
• Specular Metallicness: Positive levels of this setting tend to improve reflections of metallic materials, while lower levels help removing the metallic look on the reflections of certain materials.

Diffuse (Color) Map

The Diffuse tab displays the diffuse map which is created from the texture in the Texture tab plus a light equalization setting which removes shading and highlights from the diffuse map. Be careful as higher levels might introduce color shifts in the map.

4. 3D Material Preferences

Click here for help on the 3D Material Tab preferences. In the plug-in version, the Preferences can be opened from the Menu button.

5. Shortcut Keys

The following shortcut keys are available in the 3D Material Tab:

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